The Perfect Holiday

Happy New Year's Eve! As a write this, I am sitting in front of a warm fire after a nice snowfall today. The baby is asleep, the kitties are snuggling and Mike and I are about to watch a movie and celebrate with some bubbly. A perfect way to ring in the new year with my family!

Dylan Learning How to Shovel Snow

Snuggly Kitties

This post, though, is about my perfect Christmas with Dylan, Mike, our family here and our animals.

The Tree and The Loot

All of these firsts for the baby come with a lot of high expectations. Holiday are no exception but I tried not to have any major expectations so that I wouldn't be disappointed. Nevertheless, I had them anyway......and the were met, surpassed and blown out of the water! All because of this little Christmas Elf:

I am continually amazed at what a wonderful little guy he is. We had such a great time celebrating this first Christmas with him in our family. On Christmas Eve, I finally finished wrapping all the gifts. Dylan literally watched from his activity center while I wrapped the last of his gifts. I'm guessing this will be the last year I'll be able to get away with something like that!

Christmas morning, after Dylan slept wonderfully through the night, we awoke, came downstairs, had some breakfast, then checked out what Santa had brought us. It is just so cool that Dylan's age of understanding and being interested in toys coincides with his first Christmas.

Checking Out His Gifts From Santa

We then began opening all of the presents that were sitting under the tree. Mike, as always, was very thoughtful in all the gifts he got for me. I think he also really enjoyed what I thought of to give to him. Of course, though, the major focus of our holiday was on Dylan. Not only was he into all the toys, he also enjoyed the unwrapping!

Not to be left out in our household, the cats' stockings also held surprises for them. For Oliver, his favorite, a catnip toy. For Luci, a quick bee toy. As you can see below, they were happy Christmas campers too!

Dylan Watching Luci Play

Oliver Hittin' The Nip

After we had our celebration at home, we headed to Mike's parents' house where we joined one of his sisters, Kristina, and her family. After spending some time with each other there and, of course, opening even more presents, we got Dylan changed and ready for the big Christmas lunch at Mike's other sister's, Maureen's, house. In true baby fashion, Dylan waited until that moment to make his "morning deposit" which, of course, was a blowout. So, this crappy picture with the iPhone was the only shot of what he was planned to have worn.

The Christmas Outfit

After salvaging the sweater vest and hat, we changed him and then were off to Maureen's. As always, the house was nutty with activity. Kids and adults chatting noisily in every room, food being prepared, food being eaten, presents being opened, the dog barking....happy chaos. Dylan handled it all extremely well and was happy and joyful the entire time we were there.

Dylan With Cousins

Dylan Riding A Horse....Er, I Mean Dog

After over 7 hours of Christmas madness with no nap, Dylan finally crashed on his Auntie Maureen's shoulder for a little snooze.

I've never seen a true white Christmas. By some freak of nature, Dallas got fresh snowfall on Christmas Eve while Boston was left with snow remains from a week previous. Christmas Day was absolutely perfect (other than the obvious fact that I wasn't able to be with my family as well) except for my white Christmas. On the way home that night, after a wonderful day, we got a little snowfall on the windshield of the car. Technically not a white Christmas, but close enough to finish a perfect holiday off.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

From Our Family to Yours........

Have a VERY Merry Christmas!!!

Meeting Santa!

Last weekend was filled with Christmas parties. Saturday night was my company's holiday party which was held at the Museum of Science. There were lots of cools things to do!

The party took place on 3 levels of one of the wings of the museum and we had free access to all of the exhibits there. The Harry Potter exhibit is currently going on at the museum and we also had tickets to go to that special exhibit. Later in the night, the omni theater had a private showing for our party as well. We, however, did none of these things. With Dylan, just being somewhere new and with lots of people surrounding us (and ooing and ahhhing over the baby), we stayed quite busy just chatting with folks.

Mike and Dylan at the MOS

It was really nice to see lots of my colleagues and get to catch up with them. Dylan was a big hit and did very well that night, despite the mass amounts of stimulation. He even got to meet Santa! You never know how babies are going to react to the red dressed, long bearded guy, but Dylan seemed to take it in stride!

Santa and Dylan

Even with the threat of a nor'easter, the party had a great turn out and we had a great time. Around 9 (Dylan's bedtime), he'd had enough so it was time to go. Outdoors, all was calm....the calm before the storm.

One thing I've learned since I got here is that weathermen can not predict AT ALL what's going to happen in a nor'easter. Normally, they give you worst case scenario. Sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn't. This time, they were saying Boston was going to get over a foot of snow. The next morning, we awoke to about 8 inches. Not too bad. The snow had really tapered off, so Mike got outside and got the snow blower going Sunday morning and "dug" us out. Our street is always the last to get plowed in the area so if it's passable, we know we're good to go on other streets. It had been plowed, though literally to only one car width, so we headed out to our Sunday party - Mike's cousins' Christmas gathering.

All of Mike's cousins are around our age and we always have a great time with them. In addition to being family, they are also good friends. We had a great time just sitting around and chatting with them.

Mike and Dylan Watching the Patriots Game

The kids, of which only two were there that day, Dylan and Justin, exchanged gifts. Dylan seemed pretty interested in opening presents. Hopefully he'll enjoy it Christmas Day as well. We had bought Justin a Sesame Street shapes\block thing. We thought it a great, quiet, educational toy. Little did we know he would deafen us all by shaking around the block shapes inside the wooden box and almost take out a few people by throwing the block shapes. Apparently, we still have some learning to do on what nice quiet gifts for kids are!

Dylan Opening His Present

After being there for several hours, Dylan was getting fussy (because he always fights going to sleep and had been up for many hours at that point) so it was time to go. I thought it would be nice for Dylan and Justin to get a picture together. Justin had been interested in the baby all day. However, he did not want to sit next to him for a picture. First attempt at plopping them on the couch together did not go well!

We were able to trick them a bit later and had Dylan in a lap and got Justin to sit up next to him. So, here they are:

It was a great holiday celebration weekend with coworkers, cousins and friends!

Lee\Hines Cousins Christmas 2009

First Snowshoeing Adventure

The Sunday before last, we headed up to NH so that we could be there Monday to receive the delivery of our new refrigerator. All the appliances were original to the condo (circa 1986) whe we bought it so we knew then that we would need to replace all of them in due time. Last year our stove died and, slowly but surely, our refrigerator was also dying so we wanted to replace it before we came up one weekend to find rotting food. So we did. The purchase and delivery was painless. Yay new frig!

On the way up to the condo, we had to drive through a snowstorm. That means we had several inches of fresh snow on the ground the next morning. Perfect conditions for snowshoeing! So, we pulled out the snowshoes to take Dylan for his first trip. As I've mentioned on the blog before, our condo sits on 300 acres of land where they've carved out some hiking trails. There's a nice loop to a waterfall that I've taken many times. I enjoy seeing how the waterfall looks in all of the seasons. It truly looks completely different every time I see it. It was time to give Dylan his first glimpse of it.

After the refrigerator was delivered and all the food was transferred, Dylan needed food and a nap. So, by the time we got all bundled and geared up, we were already starting to lose daylight (close to the winter solstice, you know). It was going to be a quick trip up the hill. As always, carrying Dylan is a challenge and on top of that I was blazing the trail (which is hard work in snowshoes). I was lucky to have the ending day as motivation to get me up and down quickly....it definitely made it a hard workout!

As you can see here, it was so tough for me that I had lost many of my layers. Dylan was nice and warm in his bunting. He enjoyed looking at all the snow on the trees around us.

Pretty soon after we started our trek, we saw signs of wildlife! It's rare to actually see anything while hiking (always a special treat when you do) but the cool thing about the snow is that wildlife tracks are in full view. For almost the entire trip, we got to follow some deer tracks!

What Deer Tracks Look Like in Fresh Snow

We made it to the waterfall with little time to spare so we weren't able to take the time to go down the small hill to get right next to it, but here's a shot of it we got from the trail.

Waterfall With Small Ice Bridge

Dylan did so great on our hour long hike through the snow. He was so quiet just looking around and soaking in the scenery. Apparently the hike up pooped him out because he was so tired on the way down that he passed out....despite being in the cold and in the carrier!

Trimming the Tree

We finally finished decorating Dylan's first tree. It was somewhat of a long process this year!

First step, buying the tree. That went pretty well. We just hopped on down to our local Home Depot and picked one up. I know I know, not exactly the romanticized version of buying a tree but it was close, easy and painless.

Second step, setting the tree up in the stand. Now this is where the drama started. The trunk was too wide so, already inside the house, we had to shave it down to fit. This process was made more complex by the fact that we could only quickly locate blades for metal cutting on all of our sawing instruments. After creating quite a mess, we got the tree up, put on the lights and had Dylan help us put on the first ornament which was a "My First Christmas" ornament. Then we snapped this picture.

The Ceremonial First Ornament

Then decorating the tree started in full swing. Unfortunately, not long thereafter, the tree came crashing down! Fortunately, it fell in the opposite direction of where the baby was sitting. There were, however, a couple of casualties. Our lights broke (a good excuse to buy new LED lights) and an ornament lost a foot. Not too bad. So, back to the drawing board. Mike and I had had enough for the night so we got it settled enough so that it was upright and steady.

Several days later, much cutting, and another trip to Home Depot later, we got back to the business of trimming the tree. Dylan is definitely interested in the tree (he likes touching it...really into touching things) so I popped him in our carrier and he helped us get all the ornaments up.

Decorating the Tree

So, it only took about a week, but we got our tree up and it looks great!

Now to get some presents wrapped and underneath it!

Zoolights

On Friday, Mike, Dylan and I went to Zoolights at the Stoneham Zoo with Mike's mother. We have been enjoying such a mild winter thus far that the temperatures that evening were a bit of a shock to the system. It wasn't that cold in the scheme of things (only around 30 degrees) but man did it feel frigid! So, we all bundled up and had a nice time there.

Bundled up for Zoolights!

Basically, the zoo opens a small portion of the zoo for viewing but has all the trees and displays in the zoo decorated. There is also a separate area that is covered in lights and has fun displays that contains Santa's house and some small rides.

Snowman Dylan

Since it was dark, we weren't able to find some of the outside animals in their enclosures, but we did get to see the big, wide eyes of some of the owls. We also watched the two toed sloth move about and the meerkats romp around their enclosure. Dylan watched and seemed to enjoy the animals too! It's so fun to see him be able to (developmentally) observe and take in more of the world around him.

In addition to seeing a few of the zoo animals, we got to pet and get pictures with their two 8 month old reindeer!

Mike and Dylan at Zoolights

After our trip to Zoolights, we headed back to Mike's parent's house to drop off Dylan (and drink some hot tea to warm up). Then Mike and I headed to his sister's house for her annual "friends" Christmas party. It was great to get out for a couple of hours sans kid and chat with family and friends.

Unfortunately, Dylan didn't give his grandparents the easiest night. As all you parents out there know, evening time is the witching hour when kids tend to get cranky. Well, this happened to be one of those nights for Dylan and he got pretty worked up while we were gone and gave his grandparents quite the show. They did a great job getting him calmed down enough for him to take a little rest. So, by the time we got back, he was happy as a clam, smiling and laughing. Hopefully he didn't scare them off babysitting!

Love and Poop

Two VERY different descriptions for two major "events" of today.

1) Love. Dylan and the kitties have become more aware (Dylan's side) and accepting (kitty's side) of each other so we've been trying to facilitate the relationships. After all, we want all of us to live happily together.

Over the last week or so, Dylan has been learning to "pet" the cats. It's probably due more to the development of his motor skills and his ability to grasp things differently and have more control over his hand movements, but it looks like petting to us. If we put his hands (usually closed fists) to the cats' fur, he'll open his hand and then slightly close it as we rub it down the cats' backs. Since Oliver is more willing to be close to Dylan than Luci, it's normally Mr. O that gets the pet. Oliver has been very gracious to let these experiences happen and is obviously just barely tolerant of it.

Today, however, when Dylan went to pet Oliver's cheek\neck region, Oliver stretched out his face towards Dylan's hand and slightly rubbed against it as he does when he gives love. Wow! It may seem dorky, but Mike and I were really moved (a little embarrassed to admit almost to tears) by this display of affection from Oliver to our little baby. They might become good friends after all...until Dylan is able to crawl towards him and yank at his fur at least.

2) On to poop. Now this is really becoming a serious issue. How is it that a diaper, specifically created and designed to hold in pee and poop doesn't at all seem to be able to contain the latter? In an age of flat screen TVs, iPhones, GPS and other great technological feats, why can't a diaper hold in the poop of an infant?!?! We invest a good amount of money on a weekly basis for the diaper to do just that and it repeatedly is failing at its job.

Funny, yes, but it also repeatedly puts us in very messy predicaments (pun intended). When it happens out of the house, it becomes quite the two person clean up job (two are needed in order to best prevent the mess from spreading). Just think how often you see changing tables where both mom and dad can go in and access it. There are family bathrooms in Babies R Us and other large chain stores and restaurants that cater to families but that's about it. Heck, there are many places that don't have changing tables in their restrooms at all. Other than heading back out to our car (if we have it nearby), our options for changing him are pretty limited. But, I digress. Back to the problem at hand.

Today alone (and luckily these all happened at the house with all the "equipment" to make clean up easier), Dylan had 3 blowouts! We have the correct size diapers, have tried a couple of different brands and change him as soon as he's done with his business. Sometimes they're out the top of the back, sometimes out the legs and, if we're really lucky, out both of those places. That boy has some force! Is my child an anomaly? If so, is there some sort of contest we could win to make us millionaires off of his "talent"?

5 Months

Yep, it's that time again. My baby has aged yet another month. Everyone always says "they grow too fast" and now I truly understand. Dylan has new "tricks" every week and Mike and I just love sharing our observations about how Dylan is discovering the world around him.

He had a lot of big firsts over the last month. Most importantly, his first plane ride and visit to his Mimaw and Pipaw's house for his first Thanksgiving. He is also starting to try out some solid foods for "practice." He's tried avocado, carrots, peas, kiwi and lemon (would you believe he loved the lemon and didn't even make the sour face?). Already, he's advanced from eating food off of our fingers to eating from a spoon....some of it even ends up in his mouth and not on his face.

His laughs have increased from about one time daily to several times a day and sometimes you just can't stop the boy from smiling! He's also gained such great strength in his neck that he is now facing forward in the strap on carrier that we use. Boy, does he love kicking around in that and looking at the world face on. Not only can he roll from his back to his stomach (which he's been doing for a while now), but he can now roll from his stomach to his back. He also does a lot of movements during his tummy time that folks tell me look quite similar to crawling moves. Who knows, that boy might be on the move soon!

A big change in his life this month that's had the biggest effect on all of us is that he's gained a huge interest in toys. He has a standing activity center with toys surrounding him that he'll play in for long periods at a time. So now he's not totally dependent on us for entertainment. It's nice to put him in his center to play while we get some things done around the house. Over the last couple of weeks, his interactions with the toys have gone from looking random to looking very purposed.

What a big month we've had! This next month will be very big. Not only will we be celebrating his half year birthday at the end of it but I'll be heading back to work. So, I'll have to get as many seconds as possible with Dylan over the next few weeks and soak as much in while I can.

The End of the Trek

Our last few days in Dallas were a little quieter since my little family and my parents were the only ones left. It was great to see my whole family and sad to see them all head home, but I think the last few days were a little more similar to the pace that Dylan is used to and I'm pretty sure he enjoyed the quieter times.

Goodbye Love From The Kiddos

We had a nice time visiting with my parents and I think they really enjoyed having some one on one time with Dylan.

Mimaw in Boston Shirt and Dylan in Texas Gear

Also, even though Mike has obviously been to Dallas multiple times, our trips there have been centered around family events and he hasn't seen many of the tourist attractions. On our last day there, we took a rainy drive around town and my Mom showed him (as well as Dylan and I) the sights.

Dylan Seeing His First Longhorn

On Wednesday morning, we packed up to leave. Given that Dylan didn't sleep well the majority of the nights we were in Dallas, and especially not the night before we left, we were all pretty tired. It was going to be a long day. We got to the airport without incident nice and early (even though it was snowing in Dallas!). Dylan and I took some time to walk around the terminal to get some energy out. Along the way, we stopped in a Texas themed store and saw this adorable onsie:

Too funny! If it hadn't been ridiculously overpriced, he probably would have been wearing it today!

The beginning of the flight went fairly well. There were a few moments of fussiness when our neighbors weren't thrilled to be seated on the plane near us, Dylan only slept for about 20 minutes of it and we, both extremely exhausted, had to entertain him constantly on the trip, but it went pretty ok.

Dylan's 2nd Flight

Yes, we had a great time visiting family and friends but boy were we ready to get home! As they say, there's no place like home. Man is that ever true! We have had such a nice relaxing day back today and Dylan already seems much more his normal self (he was somewhat off throughout our entire trip). I'm glad to have that first dreaded flight\trip with baby behind us and we now have a few better tricks up our sleeve for next time.

The Dallas Zoo

The Friday after Thanksgiving, the weather was gorgeous in Dallas so we got up, had breakfast, packed a picnic lunch and all headed out to the Dallas Zoo.

During my childhood, I spent some time each summer at my grandmother's house, who lived near the zoo. It was a tradition of ours to go there together during that yearly visit. My parents have continued that tradition with their grandkids and take my nephew and niece each summer during "Mimaw and Pipaw Camp." However, I hadn't been to the zoo in probably 20 years. A lot has changed since my last visit there but some things haven't. So, in addition to it being a great day with family, a fun time seeing cool animals, a nice outing to enjoy the weather, it was also a bit of a trip down memory lane. I really enjoyed getting to share some of those childhood memories with Mike and make some new ones with my son.

Dylan Sportin' The Scally Cap

Reece, Presley, Ryker and Mike

Dylan Trying to Be Cool Like His Cousins

Presley, Ryker and Reece Are A Turtle!

Watching the Fish

Dylan's Favorite - Giraffes

Me, Presley and Dylan Watching the Giraffes

It was a full day of fun. However, we all still had enough energy that night to play some Rock Band. That was fun! The highlight of the evening was watching my Dad struggle to try and play the drums. Sorry, Dad, but it was a little funny!

Rock Band!

More Holiday Fun

One of the things we did a lot of during the holiday was watch football. Dylan and I watched the Longhorns beat the Aggies in their traditional Thanksgiving Day game...always a fun one to watch since I went to UT and my brother to A&M. My whole family watched the Cowboys win against Oakland (who Mike was cheering for) and we also watched the Patriots play against the Saints. Mike's in hog's heaven with all these games (except for that Pats loss of course) and I'm planning to not watch any more football for a while. Here's a picture of Dylan in his football gear before last weeks Pats game viewing.

Pipaw and Payton in Her Romo Jersey

As I said in my earlier post, we just enjoyed a lot of time over the holiday with my family. I had too many pictures I wanted to post so here are some more random ones. Enjoy!

Laughing With Uncle Jody

Cool Cats

Me With My New Niece Payton

Dylan & I Heading Out For A Walk

Dylan Meets His Cousins